PC Shut down message and no shut down

[sweetwater]

Hello, Upon telling my system to shut down via GUI, I get messages similar to this one without an automatic shut down
"[ 1607.300317] System halted" and there is a blinking hyphen cursor following it. I think the numbers in brackets have changed from time to time. What has happened and how to restore auto shut down?
I've also been having some messages at boot time like
RPL-ROM-ADR:0007 9553 D=A4D
RPL-ROM-IRQ:11
RPL-ROM-P10800
RPL-ROM-FFC:5
Boot failure
that appear instead of booting and when or before it does start to boot fsck happens or is manually required sometimes several times before a complete boot will happen.
Whats wrong and how to fix?

 

[MrLinux]

It would help to know what distro (and version) you are using, and some form of hardware spec.

Not shutting down is often an ACPI issue, could also explain the boot problems.

 

[sweetwater]

It would help to know what distro (and version) you are using, and some form of hardware spec.

Not shutting down is often an ACPI issue, could also explain the boot problems.

Well Mr. Linux thanx 4 the reply, I think I discovered that I had loose or misapplied connector cables to the hard drive. I've got memory problems as in dementia and have caught myself lately forgetting to apply power cable to drive I want to switch to and use [left it on the one I switched from and got the cannot boot message] and other times could have not seated cables enough for proper connection while manually switching cables on drives to switch between Os'. Also found websites stating that cmos battery can be responsible for the messages that I got too. Mobo from beginning has been flaky with losing BIOS settings and getting worse even though I replace the battery with new. Seems to get milder if I fiddle with battery pressing on and spinning it. Might need the bent over tabs on perimeter of battery hole pushed down a little to hold it more snugly.
But for grins I use a K7S5a mobo [ECS lived up to it's flaky reputation but at least it wasn't fatally so...] homebuilt with 1gb pc3200 CPU is Athlon XP 1700+ and have three drives [Seagate 80gb Windoze rarely used soon to be turned into a virtual appliance with VirtualBox for other distro play| a 20gb IBM Deskstar with Ubuntu 9.10| and a Maxtor 40gb I think with Ubuntu 9.04 on it] Video card is NVidia based 6200 AGP4 256mbDDR and sound is SBLive 4.0. PSU is 400+W. PSU may be bigger w..
My memory problem really slows me down for learning and doing but hasn't completely stopped me yet. If you have any further input pleeez go ahead or confirm my actions etc. so I can say this was the best answer of all one that I received. Any way I also changed pnp os in bios to 'no' [a friend recommended this as a potential for messing things up if left as 'yes'] and stopped using busmaster setting as I learned it was for DOS purposes. Unit is powered thru an UPS... Hope I remembered it all...%SW Thanx again!!!

 

[sweetwater]

It would help to know what distro (and version) you are using, and some form of hardware spec.

Not shutting down is often an ACPI issue, could also explain the boot problems.

I realized that I hadn't answered the hardware question appropriately. I couldn't figure out how to edit my last post so I replied to this.
They only hard drive that seems effected is the Seagate Barracuda. IT's the old style figure 8 or omega symbol appearance from the top or silver side. I bought it at a garage sale. Also wondering if a cracked damaged plug-in on drive might be the cause since errors usually only appear after a cable switch. Also not sure if it is 66 or 100 ATA. Last I recall it seems that 66 sticks out in my mind but dementia does weird tricks on short term memory.
Also wondering if PSU cabling is missing a connection when wires are twisted just the right/wrong way?
Sorry for the confusion!!! SW

 

[sweetwater]

Well MrLinux hasn't replied to my response and Thread monitor wants me to choose best answer.... Nerver really got one but I posted some plausible ideas which have improved the situation.
So most likely wear signs of older hardware plus user mistakes in cabling and bios settings!

 

[sweetwater]

Best answer selected by sweetwater.